You Are My Righteousness

This is a song about how we need Jesus to be more than simply a payment voucher to cover the debt we owe to God because of our rebellion. Even if our record were wiped clean of offenses, we wouldn’t have any goodness, credit, or merit with which we might be made acceptable to God. The Christian life is a battle to remain on the way of grace, a battle where we are continually stumbling off the path into one of two ditches. First, we tend to wallow in what looks like contrition, but is actually unbelief that God would forgive us simply because of what Jesus has done. We think that by our tears we can somehow prove that we are sorry enough for God to forgive us. We can also fall away from grace by acting as if we don’t need it – because we’ve got our lives under control and are, essentially, pleasing God by being faithful. We can overlook certain sins and feel proud that we’re not flagrantly committing others. The song is a cry for help, a cry that God would give us faith to believe that Jesus is our only hope to be made acceptable before God. By His death He bore the penalty for our failure, and by His perfect life, the credit for which He gives us by faith, His success becomes ours.

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